


ghosts that we knew

by amaranthinecanicular



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Background fjorester and beauyasha, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 14:02:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaranthinecanicular/pseuds/amaranthinecanicular
Summary: When Caduceus met Mollymauk Tealeaf, it was not the way other people imagine meeting someone. No hello would you like some tea. No luxury of face and voice and touch. Caduceus met Mollymauk the way soul friends from a past life pass on the street as strangers. A fleeting, powerful impression of loyalty and bitterness and fear and deep, fierce love. The lingering scent of nag champa.Caduceus Clay is a little bit in love with a dead man.





	ghosts that we knew

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline is nebulous, but you could say there are vague spoilers up to episode 76.

There’s a lot of shouting once the bandits stop their assault, but Beauregard shouts above them all. 

“You have got to be _fucking_ kidding me!”

She tears out the crossbow bolt lodged in her shoulder and hurls it with such force that it jams half to the fletching in a man’s thigh. No sooner is he on the ground than she is on top of him, fist reared back and dripping her own blood.

“Starting over, huh? New leaf, _huh?”_

This is a strange thing to say to a bandit that just tried to kill you and then suddenly stopped trying to kill you, Caduceus decides. He unfolds from his defensive crouch. Beside him Jester pushes to her feet with less spring than usual. There are mud stains on her frock and shock has cracked open her expression. She doesn’t seem interested in healing at the moment, so Caduceus says a quick prayer and watches fungus bubble to life and crust into death on Beau’s shoulder. She doesn’t notice.

The bandit is blubbering, “We did start over! We tried! We went to the coast and worked on the docks but they booted Davo for his bum leg and we thought we should stick together, take care of our own, what with the new management like your friend said—” His eyes bulge in his skull as he searches for a familiar face and finds none. He sobs, “Where is he? I swear we were tryin’ to do good, he’d show us mercy—”

Beauregard pops him in the right eye with her fist. The bandit howls, and Caduceus is less surprised at how long it took her than he is by the sudden blind ferocity in her eyes, in her teeth bared to the gums.

“You should’ve stayed,” she says through her teeth. “You should have stayed well the fuck away, because now you’ve wasted your second chance and I get to beat you to death just like we promised.”

The man keeps sobbing. Everyone, everything is very still, except for Beauregard’s fist, which starts to tremble.

She releases him. He collapses, starts to crawl and then stops when Beau’s fist comes for his face. It doesn’t connect—instead her fingers crack open, and a gold coin falls into his lap. Before he can say anything Beau stomps away. She makes the rounds, shoving gold into each bandit’s chest without explanation. The first man is still blinking down at the coin in his lap when she comes back to him. He yelps as she hauls him nose to nose.

“This is your last chance,” she growls. “If I ever see you lot again, I’ll rip your throats out through your asses, get me?”

Beau stands there, heaving, long after they’ve cleared off. The rest of their time on the road is spent in sullen silence; it’s clear now that they all knew each other, though no one is in a hurry to say how. Caduceus doesn’t press. He saw the way Beau’s face transmuted there on the road, a human sort of alchemy, from fury to grief and then to fury informed by grief. 

They stop in a city that unfolds in a valley, buildings climbing like vine up either side of the mountains. While lodging arrangements are being made Jester says in a whisper that they’d met those bandits twice before down in the Empire. They’re not in the Empire now, and they’re not in Xhorhas. It’s honestly nothing less than serendipitous that they’d meet again, this far north of old borders.

“Wow,” Caduceus whispers back. “Well, that’s just neat. What are the chances, huh?”

Jester agrees, it is pretty neat, but also kind of sad, but before she can reveal why Beau starts stalking in their direction. She’s still keen for a fight, so Jester pats his arm and promises to tell him more later. 

Now it is later, though probably not later enough. The seven of them have landed in a crowded and rowdy bar, full of cheerful and rowdy people, the like of whom don’t give a rowdy bunch like them a second glance. The Nein are thoroughly drunk, excepting Caduceus. The promised explanation does not seem forthcoming. That’s all right. Caduceus knows grief in more forms than most folk think exist, and the grief he saw on the road was particular.

He orders a drink from the bar, and then takes a moment to observe and soak in the atmosphere. It’s loud and close and strong-smelling, and thoroughly alive. Places, times, people like this make him glad he left the Savalier Wood. The feeling is matched only by how acutely he misses his graveyard at the same time.

Bearegard throws herself onto the stool beside him and says, “He was an asshole.”

“Come again?” says Caduceus. The glass of milk is halfway to his mouth. 

“He was a fucking asshole.” 

Caduceus lowers the glass. He has a strong suspicion of who she’s talking about, but still he says, “Sorry, think I missed something. Who’s the asshole now?”

_“Molly,_ duh.” Beau gives him a flat look, the effect of which is somewhat dulled by inebriation. “Back then I said he was the best of us and I wasn’t lying, but let’s be real, he was also a huge dick.”

This is a surprise—Beau is usually first to defend Mollymauk’s memory, whether or not it’s under attack. “That isn’t quite in line with what I’ve heard of Mr. Tealeaf,” he says. Beau snorts whiskey through her nose.

“Dude, you have no idea,” she says, after coughing and swearing for a minute. “He was _such_ an asshole. I couldn’t stand him for the longest time. We had this routine where we’d give each other shit and then I would say fuck you Molly and he would say go fuck yourself Beau. That was like our _thing.”_

“Sounds sweet,” Caduceus says.

“Yeah, for an _asshole._ He was arrogant and mouthy and petty. Obnoxious and oshen—_ostentatious_ as fuck. I mean you’ve seen his coat on the grave marker, right? And this one time he had to pretend to be a sick patient to get into a hospital and he spent an hour sculpting his dick into this gods-awful rotten horror show _just because._ He never even took it out.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s, uh…” Just about the last thing he expected her to say, really. “That’s wild, huh. Really dedicated.” 

Beau snorts again, this time without the whiskey. “He tried so hard to impress. And he lied, all the gods damn time. He said to us once, he said—that when he was with the circus he lied and he conned but he left every town better than he found it.” Those words ring familiar. In Caduceus’s memory and in his chest, a strange corner of his heart. “Can you imagine the balls it takes to make that claim? How conceited you have to be? I hated him when he said that.”

The slash of her mouth is ragged, but Caduceus is a fair hand at reading people, and he has had more time to read Beauregard than most. At once the twist to her mouth is sharp and guilty and sad and very, very fond. 

“Was he lying?” he asks, gently.

“No,” says Beauregard. “I think it was the most honest I’ve ever seen him.” The twist to her mouth gets sharper. She says, in a rush like confession: “The night before he died, we were telling each other our best lies, and I told him this awful fuckin’ story where I broke up a marriage and he told this story about how he fooled a town into thinking he was royalty. For two weeks! Those yokels must’ve had the grandest fucking time, thinking they’d been graced by a king when really all they got was just—_Molly._ No idea he was better than any fucking king.” 

Her eyes swell up with alarming speed, so sudden that even she seems surprised by it. She jams the heels of her palms into her eyes with enough force that Caduceus worries they’ll bruise. “Fuck fuck fuckity fucking—this is stupid. _He_ was stupid. He was stupid and reckless and self destructive and why the fuck am I telling this to you? You didn’t know him.”

She sounds like she means it to be cruel, and then she sounds like she regrets it. Caduceus isn't offended—he knows she’s right. He remembers Glory Run, the snow and the coat and the earth. He thinks about it a lot. Yes, he knows grief, but it was only beside the grave that day that he learned just how keenly the Mighty Nein felt the loss of Mollymauk Tealeaf. It’s the kind of hurt that might change a memory, warp it. They speak of him reverently, ever warmly, as one would a deity. Mollymauk is kind and generous and bold. He loves life with fervor and always forgives. He is without flaw, which Caduceus knows in his heart is untrue, and he stands proud on a pedestal. 

It’s a normal enough coping mechanism. Caduceus has seen many idealize the dead. The truth of it is that he didn’t know Mollymauk in life, and he doesn’t know him in death.

He rumbles genially. “Hm. I don’t know. Why the fuck are you?”

Beau tightens her jaw, and then she takes a big, throw-her-head-back drink. The grumbly bugbear bartender refills her glass. Across the room Jester and Caleb are teaching Fjord how to waltz. Nott is loudly critiquing their performance. Caduceus catches himself wondering what Mollymauk would be doing if he were here, so he asks.

“Um,” says Beau, surprised right out of her sour mood. “He’d…he’d probably be dancing too. He’d invite Nott or me or you to join him and he’d spin around the room a few times.” A small smile curls back onto her face, though it looks like she doesn’t know it’s there. “He did that once, in Hupperdook. Jester and Caleb were dancing this fancy ass waltz and Molly picked Nott up and just went for it. They couldn’t dance for shit but he didn’t care.” 

Caduceus looks back out across the bar and for a second he can almost see it. A lavender tiefling with a very loud coat on his back and a very small goblin on his toes, turning and turning about the room, defying anyone to stop them. It’s lovely.

“Before,” Beau starts, and the vision vanishes. He turns back to her; she’s scowling. “When I said it was stupid to talk about this. It’s just that I already said all that when he died, okay? It’s weird to say it again.” 

“Don’t force it if you don’t want to—” 

“Shut up. Sorry. Just.” She takes a deep breath. “When he told me that story about pretending to be a king, I realized, fuck: if I can do shitty things and deliberately leave a place worse, then of course he can deliberately leave a place better. Back there, with those asshat bandits? They’ve tried to hold us up twice, and each time Molly gave them coin. The second time he gave them armor right off his back. Told them to turn their lives around. Like some fucking—idiot.”

“Sounds sweet,” Caduceus says again, and this time Beauregard hiccups a sad laugh.

“Yeah. That too. He totally showed me up, and then he got the last word in by dying. Like an asshole. See? A total asshole.” She grins toothily, her eyes still overly bright, and doesn’t wait for Caduceus to answer. Over the din of the bar: “To Molly, the greatest asshole I ever knew!” 

Without hesitation the scattered troupe shouts in drunken chorus, “To Molly!”

Caduceus watches them and realizes that this is the closest he’s ever felt to Mollymauk’s memory. A nameless, amorphous thing in his chest rings like a struck glass with the truth of it. He raises his glass of milk. 

“To Molly.”

Caduceus has a knack for reading people and what he reads is this: when they first met, Fjord did not like him.

He was unnerved by Caduceus’s manner. Put off by his nature. On more than one occasion Jester or Nott assured Caduceus that “He’s not usually like this,” after Fjord had snapped something petty and stalked off. 

Caduceus knew that he wasn't usually like this. Fjord had a lot to hide, it was clear even then, but he wasn't a cruel person. Caduceus had seen him interact with strangers, seen him talk with friends. The steady drawl and easy smile. The open posture that closed and locked up tight as soon as Caduceus shut the door to their shared room. When they were bunking together, purely by default, that was when Fjord was at his most churlish.

Technically Caduceus doesn't know why Fjord disliked him, but he has some theories.

Time has a way of settling grudges, Caduceus has found, one way or another. Fjord is a good man and Caduceus is patient. Animosity leveled out into neutrality, and neutrality into respect, and respect into friendship. That brief unhappy interim is not brought up by either of them.

On a dim morning in Rosohna, Caduceus finds Fjord praying over his sword. Artificial starlight is soft and gray and glimmering off of Star Razor’s blade. Caduceus wouldn’t ask to join him, normally. It seems such a private ritual. But a quiet moment with one’s god has sounded more appealing of late. He approaches gingerly. 

“Would you mind some company this morning?”

Fjord nods and yawns and nods again. “Sure thing, M—”

He cuts himself sharply off. Suddenly his spine is rigid, and even though Fjord can’t see it Caduceus raises a placating hand.

“No worries, man. I understand if it’s personal. Time with one’s faith, I get that.”

He thinks to comb the city for a secluded place to commune on his own, but halfway through the door, Fjord’s voice reaches him. 

“No, it’s fine. I was still half asleep. For a second I thought you were—” 

The words gutter out, and Caduceus knows exactly who Fjord thought he was. This is not the first time it’s happened. Possibly it won’t be the last. Now the lines of Fjord’s back look very tired. 

Fjord says, with dignity, “I’d be honored if you joined me, Caduceus.” 

He’s not the type to make such offers insincerely, so Caduceus shuts the door and kneels beside him. He lays his staff down, running parallel with the grain in the floorboards. For a long moment they’re quiet.

”Wasn’t praying to Uk'otoa,” Fjord coughs out at last. He shrugs, chuckles, but both gestures come off stilted and sickly. “Just in case you thought.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything,” Caduceus says mildly, and some of the sickliness buffs out of Fjord’s smile. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you do this. Always thought it was nice.”

“Hm. It has been a minute. Brings me comfort, I guess you could say. Clears my head.”

“Something happen that you need your head cleared, Fjord?” He keeps his voice steady, nonjudgmental. Fjord still winces. 

“Nothing new, really,” he says. “I suppose it got hard to sit here and attune once we learned my last sword was bound to an eldritch demigod bent on consuming the world. But now, with Star Razor, it’s like...a weight has been lifted. I can attune again, and talk to the Wild Mother, and I can't say how grateful I am for that. Truly.” 

Caduceus warms. Pride is not something he thinks on often, but that he had even a footnote in this story—he’s proud of that. “That sword was waiting for you, Fjord. I just held onto it for a while.”

For a second Fjord’s answering smile is nothing less than genuine. His tusks are growing in. They suit him, Caduceus thinks, and then Fjord uses one to chew on the corner of his mouth and the smile disappears. “All the same, I… I miss the damned thing, sometimes.”

“The falchion?”

“Summer’s Dance. Not because of Uk’otoa, of course, it’s just that—” His gaze falls to his lap. “That sword was half Molly.”

An involuntary noise startles out of Caduceus’s throat. He’s not sure what Fjord means—was Summer’s Dance once Mollymauk’s? Was it gifted to Fjord in life or bequeathed after his death? Fjord snuffs at his nose, oblivious to Caduceus’s reaction.

“It was, uh. It was something Molly and I used to do together. This business with the swords. I learned it from him.” 

Another surprise. This one Caduceus chases after. “I didn’t realize he was a man of faith.”

The twist to Fjord’s mouth becomes a little wry. “It wasn’t so straightforward as that. Not much of him was. He had faith, but not the way most people do. He worshipped a dozen gods, just because it made him happy. Turned out praying over his swords didn’t have to do with a single one of them.” He snorts. “I don’t know if anyone’s told you, but Molly had a penchant for bending truths, to put it delicately.”

“I’ve heard that was his way, yes. Beauregard said it was usually for the purpose of generating joy.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.” Guilt, now, alongside the warmth. “I didn’t really get that at first. This group had some trouble trusting each other in the beginning, but Molly and I--it felt like we were in it together. Like we both understood that trust would be vital for this group to make it, and like we were the only ones holding it together for a while. Maybe that’s self-centered, but that’s how it felt.” 

In Caduceus’s mind a clearer image starts to take shape: Fjord and Mollymauk, back to back, lashing a loose company of wanderers together through force of their charm and their desire to not be alone. Such an undertaking would bind two people together. Like sailors braving the same storm.

“So when I found out the sword thing we did together was just more bullshit…” Fjord’s voice is almost a whisper. His eyes are far away. “But it wasn’t, I don’t think. Not completely, anyway. Even though he held with no deity in particular, he worshipped his swords every day the same way he worshipped all his gods—because it made him happy. And he let me be a part of that.”

There’s such earnestness there that Caduceus feels it in his chest, ringing, like the clear sweet tone of a bell. The image resolves into sudden clarity: Mollymauk, praying to no one, just for the simple joy of time spent with his friend.

Fjord comes back to himself with a slow blink. Grunts and passes a hand over his face as though to scrub away the memories. The light through the window has printed pale echoes of stars along the blade and over their knees, their thighs. “Sorry for dumping all this on you, Deuce. I haven’t spoken much about him since…” He clears his throat, once and then again. 

Caduceus says, “It sounds like you want to talk about him. I want to listen.” And then he surprises himself just a little. “I want to learn more about him.”

It surprises Fjord too. His eyes are wide and fixed on Caduceus’s face; his brow is knotted. Determination locks into place behind his eyes, and he takes a sharp, bracing breath.

“I know I wasn’t very fair to you, Caduceus, when we met. I’m sorry about that. You’re just—you’re different from him, that’s all. Reminds me that he’s gone. He was my very good friend, and it breaks my heart every time I remember.” He sniffs once, hard. “It’s no excuse for how I treated you, though.”

Caduceus kneels beside him a little more comfortably. His legs are warm with starlight. “Yeah, maybe not. But you were grieving. You all were. You still are. I don’t hold it against you.”

“I wish you would.”

“Because you feel like it’s your fault.”

It’s not a question. Fjord flinches. “I was supposed to protect them,” he says, low and sure. “If I’d been strong enough not to get taken, he wouldn’t be dead.”

A silence settles, waiting to be broken. Eventually Fjord gives him a sidelong look, half surprised and half suspicious. “You’re not going to say I’m wrong?”

Caduceus shrugs. “Like I said, you’re grieving. Even if I said it I doubt you’d be ready to hear it, so why burden you?” 

He shrugs again, and Fjord looks… relieved, and surprised at his relief. He runs one palm along the reforged blade. Caduceus never gave the falchion much thought past what it meant for Fjord, the darkness it carried, but now he wishes he had. Maybe he’d have seen that brighter echo caught within the curve, the one redeeming thing. 

“There are all different kinds of ghosts,” he says. He thinks about a pendant resting warm between his collarbones. He thinks about Glory Run. “Oftentimes we don’t get to choose when and how we’re haunted. By what or by whom. All we can do is make peace with them, as best we can.” He rests a hand Fjord’s shoulder. Squeezes. Pulls back again. “For what it’s worth, Fjord, I forgive you for being short with me. And I think Mr. Tealeaf would forgive you as well.”

Fjord shuts his eyes and swallows thickly. Caduceus can see the ripple in his throat. He says, “I think he’d have liked you, Caduceus. You’re very different, but I think he’d have liked you a lot.”

“I’m honored to hear that.” And he is. More than he thought he’d be. 

“Grab your staff, if you’d like. I’ll show you what to do.” Fjord grins a little. “If that’s not too presumptuous of me.”

“Not at all.”

Fjord takes Caduceus through it as Mollymauk must have taken him, and the careful, quiet intensity of rapture that they must have shared in these gray mornings tells Caduceus more about Mollymauk than words ever could.

Nott has sticky fingers. Caduceus learns this quickly. She thieves without discrimination: from the rich and the poor, valuables and gold and worthless, shiny trinkets, sometimes for spite and sometimes for necessity and sometimes just because she can. Caduceus, who has long since made clear that riches are of little interest to him, comes to expect that he’ll wake up one morning relieved of his coin purse. He doesn’t much mind the thought.

Except she doesn’t. Even when her funds run low, even where her eyes get shifty. There’s never a single missing coin. He thinks at first it’s out of loyalty to the party, until one night in an abandoned mineshaft he catches her lifting two throwing stars from Beau’s belt.

He watches her work with interest, and then he says, “Why not take from me? It would probably be easier.” Nott jumps halfway out of her skin, which makes him feel a little bad. “Ah, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle.”

“Mr. Clay! Uh! Didn’t know you were still awake, ha ha!” Beauregard grumbles in her sleep, and Nott endeavors to lower the volume of her voice while maintaining the shrill, panicky pitch. “I was just, um! Sleepwalking! And now I’m sleeptalking! So you, you better not wake me up, or wake Beau up, because sleepwalkers can get violent and I’ll, I’ll getcha!”

She bares her fangs a little. Caduceus thinks it’s charming. He lifts his cup of tea. “Care to join me?”

Nott pauses. She still looks like she’s waiting for him to rat on her, and he suspects that’s why she says, “Um, yes, okay.”

She takes a few fortifying gulps of her flask and scurries over. Caduceus pours a second cup, which she accepts, warily. When she thinks he isn’t looking she dumps the tea and replaces it with alcohol.

They settle. In the world above the Wild Mother would whisper in Caduceus’s ear to fill the silence: murmuring trees, chirping insects, crooning creatures of the night. Down here there is none of that. So little sound can reach them and what does either echoes strangely or soaks into the damp earthen walls. It’s peaceful, and that’s what Caduceus focuses on instead of the mournful yearning for sun and wind. This is how it was in the tunnels to Xhorhas, and in the dungeons that held the Laughing Hand. He reminds himself as he did then: this, too, is the earth. This, too, is the Mother’s domain.

“I, um. I didn’t think you’d still be on watch,” Nott ventures. Caduceus nods thoughtfully.

“Sure, sure. Caleb was supposed to be next. He would’ve been the safer bet, probably would’ve let you pickpocket Beauregard. Makes sense.” In his peripheral he sees Nott wince. “But he needs his sleep. They all do. I don’t mind it. The world is quiet here.” 

Nott is no longer wincing. She’s watching him, with large, glassy eyes. The slits of her pupils are dilated like a cat’s. 

She sighs a sudden and explosive sigh, and then falls backward onto the ground. Wrapped up in her cloak she nearly melts into the hard-packed earth; Caduceus watches this display with mild interest. Then she’s on her feet again, shoving her cup back at Caduceus and marching over to Beau’s lumpy bedroll. It’s a flailing mess: there are throwing stars and Nott’s beneath-her-breath grumbles and Beauregard’s drowsy fumbling. It all looks pretty…pokey, from Caduceus’s point of view. 

“Bwuh?” says Beau, reaching for her staff. Nott finishes securing the weapons back into Beau's belt and waves her arms angrily.

“Go back to sleep!” she screeches. Quietly, though. “Someone was trying to rob you but I scared them off! You’re welcome!”

Beauregard squints at her. Then she squints at Caduceus. Caduceus shrugs, which apparently satisfies Beau’s half-awake suspicions, and she flops back down into spread-eagled sleep. In seconds her snores resume, and Nott huffs. She keeps huffing as she draws the cloak-turned-blanket up around Beau’s shoulders. Caduceus has a moment to reflect fondly on Nott’s more motherly qualities—tucking Beau into bed, encouraging Jester, any given situation with Caleb—and then she’s back in his face, snatching her teacup and splashing liquid over the rim. She gulps it back angrily.

“There! Are you happy now?”

“Uh, generally, sure. I’m usually pretty happy. What am I meant to be happy about?” 

“I gave Beau her stuff back. So you can stop judging me now! No one’s perfect, not even you!”

“I wasn’t judging you for taking it in the first place,” he corrects. “And I’m far from perfect. But I am confident you’ll sleep easier with your decision.”

“I think I’d have slept just fine with two shiny new throwing stars.” She stops pouting long enough to send him a shrewd look. “And it would have been way harder to filch from you. You’re like some scary perceptive pastel monster.”

This Caduceus accepts modestly. He had never thought himself any more or less intuitive than the next person, firbolg or otherwise, but Fjord holds his opinion on such matters in high esteem, and Caduceus tries to live up to that. 

“Fair enough,” he says, “But I’d have been more likely to let you get away with it.”

Nott grouses. “Okay, probably. But I wouldn’t have filched from you anyway.”

His ears flick. “No?”

“You’re too _nice.”_ This said with disgust, and she sticks out her tongue for good measure. “Try being a grumpy asshole more often. Then I’d really rob you blind.”

The bafflement must show on his face, or in his flicking ears, because Nott sniggers a little. From the depths of slate and soil echoes a low howl and they fall quiet to listen. Over the next few minutes the call sounds three more times, further and further, softer and softer. Even if the creature were wending its way toward them Caduceus doesn’t think it would pose a danger. It sounds less predatory than lonesome. In the nearby town they heard there were ghosts down here. Caduceus has not yet sensed any undead presence, but that doesn’t mean the stories were wrong. He touches a hand to the amulet around his neck. There are all kinds of ghosts.

The expression on Nott’s face has sobered into a smile, a small thing, sad and familiar.

“It was a rule of Molly’s,” she says eventually, almost exactly like he thought she would. “Only steal from the bad guys. The _grumpy people,_ he called them.”

“I see.” This casts things in a new light. Reflection proves her right: none of the people she’s pickpocketed, as far as Caduceus could tell, were of particularly fair temperament. Whereas down here—they followed a lead down here and they have been traveling in the deep and dark for a very long time. Everyone is sore and sour. “Beauregard _can_ get pretty grumpy.”

“I know, right? It was kind of Molly’s way of keeping me on the straight and narrow, morally speaking, you know? At least regarding the, uh, the itch.”

“Beau told me he was kind of an asshole,” Caduceus offers. The strange corner of his heart thumps indignantly. “Hush-a-hush,” he says to it. 

Nott doesn’t notice. She says, with fervor, “Oh, he was. Once he charm-spelled me into spilling personal secrets that I really didn’t want to spill.” She juts her chin indignantly, then rolls her eyes and sags. “But I _guess_ that was also him trying to take care of me. And I guess I’ve also made some… _decisions_ for people without consulting them. And I guess technically Molly _did_ catch me stealing from Fjord at the time.” She jabs a small, bony finger up in the direction of Caduceus’s face, but her arm isn’t long enough to reach all the way. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a dick move, though!”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Good, because it was!” She hunches in around her knees, grumbling. “I still get mad at him sometimes.”

She grumbles some more, and Caduceus clarifies, “For being a dick?”

Nott explodes. “For being so dumb! Sorry, sorry. I know we’re not supposed to speak poorly of the dead.”

“Well—”

“But he _was_ dumb! Sorry, I’m sorry, but he was _so_ dumb! He was so dumb he got himself killed! And do you know why he was so dumb?”

This has been simmering in Nott for a while, Caduceus thinks, so he turns to better face her. “Am I right to assume you’ll tell me?”

“Because he was innocent.”

Caduceus blinks. Nott’s big, damp eyes are suddenly damper.

“Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t _innocent_ innocent. He was always, y’know, _down to clown,_ both sexually and criminally. But he was also—naive, and young. Kind of, not really, but in a way he was. And he was stupid because he was young, stupid and reckless and prideful because he was young. He was afraid all the time and pretended he wasn’t, and he did dangerous, stupid shit in spite of it.”

Caduceus says, not unkindly, “So do you, Nott the Brave.”

Nott cuts him a fierce look. “Sure, but only after stating very loudly how fucking stupid it is! I do what I do knowingly, I deserve everything that’s coming to me, and also I go into things with more practical experience! He swaggered in without any of that, even though he had the least practice fighting of all of us. He fought with carnival swords! _Fucking carnival swords!”_

She’s on her feet, her small frame heaving almost comically, loud and sharp and fast breaths bursting into the dark. Someone snores and rolls over behind them. Fjord, it sounds like. Beauregard and Jester are still out, but it’s harder to tell with Yasha and Caleb. They both sleep very still and quiet.

Nott glances back at them, guiltily, and this is what Caduceus thinks of: Nott fretting over Caleb. Nott braving monsters and men and open ocean for the sake of a group of people Caduceus cannot always say deserves it. He thinks of the husband they rescued, and the child they left behind. It’s not comical. It’s anything but.

Nott is still watching them when she says, “He was innocent. He thought he could take care of us, even though he cocked it up most of the time, that’s how innocent he was. Young. Still new to the world.”

That—that. That ricochets in Caduceus’s chest cavity. Sometimes it still bowls him over, that overwhelming feeling of newness, of not readiness, of too much too different too big where has home goneness.

He doesn’t know how to say that, and doesn’t think it’s what Nott needs or wants to hear. So instead he says, “You can’t save everyone, Nott.” 

Nott snarls a little, but it doesn’t sound like her heart is in it. She flops back down and flops against Caduceus also, and Caduceus scoots closer to let her. “I don’t want to save everyone. Just these idiots.” She burrows down. Her words are muffled. “I love them, Caduceus. And I only realized it when Mollymauk died. Maybe if I realized sooner, then maybe I’d have fought harder to protect him, and maybe he wouldn’t be dead.”

Caduceus smiles at the top of her head. It’s strange to feel the way sadness pulls at it. He's been feeling it more and more often lately, and he has to remind himself that this isn’t his sadness, it can’t be, because he didn’t know Mollymauk, even if sometimes--right now--it feels like he did. 

“It’s my experience that love will always make itself known,” he says. “Through action if not through words. I’d bet that you were fighting as hard as you could, because you were loving them all as hard as you could, even if you didn’t know it.”

Nott sighs. She’s still a little sad, but mostly she’s tired now. Past his own stolen sadness Caduceus is glad to have helped ease her burden. He puts an arm around her. She’s surprisingly dense against him, getting heavier in increments as the day’s exhaustion finally takes its toll. 

“Love you too, Deucey,” Nott says.

“I know, Nott. And I can feel you trying to take my purse. You could just ask.”

“Ah, fuck you!”

Caleb tells them a story one day, and another day, and another day. He gives himself to them piece by piece by piece, and it hurts him every time. It’s a story that he’s already told Nott and Beauregard. Given how that story ends, it’s really no surprise what happens when they finally meet—or re-meet, for some of them—Trent Ikithon. 

The man is a master wizard, and there are more than a few close calls. Many more. But the Mighty Nein emerge victorious. Ikithon’s corpse is smoldering. That’s too bad, Caduceus thinks, and casts _calm emotions_ over himself with shaking hands; it’s hard to grow things from ashes. 

Then he sees Caleb‘s face. 

Something passes unsaid between the rest of the Nein, and while the others begin damage control Caduceus leads Caleb away by the arm. Nott makes to follow but is yanked back by Jester for healing—which makes sense, she took a lot of damage shielding Caleb from Ikithon’s nastier spells. She makes some fretful, violent gestures that Caduceus translates roughly to _take care of my boy or I’ll kill you._

Together Caleb and Caduceus stagger from the wizard’s tower into the Zemnian night, to the fresh air and stars, and then they keep walking. Caleb shuffles around like undead things do, and with the same vacant expression. After a minute or so he makes a faint attempt at speech, but Caduceus knows grief. There are no words for this yet.

“Hush,” he says. “There’s time for that later.” 

They stop only when the sharp scent of earth and trees in snow overpowers the scent of burning flesh and hair. Caduceus presses on Caleb’s shoulders until he sits, cross legged, on the trunk of a downed tree. He takes a seat beside him. Then he pulls out his kettle.

More minutes pass. The kettle boils—with magic, not fire—and the tea steeps. Caleb’s eyelashes flutter, and the weight of his body sagging into Caduceus’s side is less than he thought it would be. He takes Caleb’s hand and presses the cup into his palm, folds his fingers around it.

“Here, drink this. Let it warm your bones,” he says, and Caleb responds, from far away, “Yes. Yes, thank you, Mollymauk.”

Caduceus goes very still.

“I never…I never thanked you, did I? For the first time you saw me this way. How kind you were. How you…” His fingers drift to his forehead, a tender, wondering touch. After a moment he sighs, and closes his eyes. “Time for that later,” he says.

Caduceus considers grief, and Mollymauk Tealeaf, and the power of a simple kindness when one was not expected. The pendant is warm in the hollow of his throat. It saved his life tonight. He thinks that maybe, when he and Caleb say _time for that later,_ they are referring to different things.

He cups his hand around the curve of Caleb’s skull. Strokes one thumb at the downy hair at his temple. Caleb stiffens, and Caduceus knows the trance has broken. 

“Maybe it’s not my place,” he says, slowly, “but I’d wager that Mollymauk Tealeaf would say it’s time for that now. You’ve put it off long enough. You’re allowed to grieve.” 

The tension winds tighter in Caleb’s body and then shudders loose all at once. In a very small voice, he says, “Thank you, Mr. Clay.”

And Caduceus says, “You’re very welcome, Mr. Caleb.”

Caleb’s body shudders again, but he says nothing more. He drinks his tea.

They make it a point to stop by the grave whenever they’re on Glory Run. Lay out some canvas, light a fire, have a meal, make a day of it. The grief never really fades but with time new emotions come in alongside it. Peace. Serenity. Caduceus sees it in their faces when they round the bend and the grave marker comes into view. The coat is somehow, impossibly, proudly and brazenly, ever present. Their expressions are potent with the same bittersweet sting Caduceus sometimes feels when he imagines his little graveyard sanctuary. _Home,_ that expression says. 

Sometimes Caduceus feels separate from them then, a little lonely, but only in a distant way. He knows this is their grief. Their loss. It’s not something he can be a part of, not really.

Things are growing on the grave now, beds of vibrant wildflowers and a tree that sprouts at miraculous speed. Caduceus knows inherently that they will grow nowhere else. He gathers some flowers and starts to grind a tea. Once the brew is done he distributes: Jester and Nott drink it. Caleb and Fjord decline. Yasha takes one slow sip and then closes her eyes for a very long time.

Here they spend the day, in peace: Fjord against the tree on one side, meditating over Star Razor. Caleb against the tree on the other, reading with an expression that is less intent and more serene than usual. Beau climbs the boughs and branches. Yasha is laying in the wildflowers while Nott plucks them and pokes them into her hair. Every now and then Yasha’s eyes glitter in the light, and Caduceus feels compelled to look away.

In front of him, Jester flips down the final card. She grins. “How was that? I’m getting much better at telling fortunes, right?”

Caduceus admires his card. The edges are a bit warped with red, but Caduceus likes them better for it. “Thanks, Jester. That was lovely, I really appreciate it.” 

Jester giggles. “You remind me of Fjord, sometimes, with how you talk. So gracious and formal.” She clears her throat and then takes on a mockingly serious air. “And very _handsome,_ like him, but in a different way.”

“Thank you kindly.”

“See! Just like that!”

She laughs, and he laughs with her. Then her laughter tapers away, and her expression turns thoughtful. “Sometimes you remind me of Molly, too,” she says. The flicker of Caduceus’s ears is involuntary. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like sure, mostly you’re very super different, but there are some things. Like how you’re both way too generous with your money. Or how you’re really good at cooking, and my last memory of him was making this big dinner for us on the road. He said they made it when the circus was between towns—it was really good. Or how his name is Tealeaf and the first thing you did when you met Caleb and Beau and Nott was make them tea. Or how we lost him and met you at the same time, almost, and you know all about death and grieving and stuff, which is like really really serendipitous if you think about it.”

She gets quiet, studying the cards laid out between them and picking at the edge of the one in her hand. Caduceus allows her to gather her thoughts. He’s patient. 

“Most of the time,” she says, treading carefully through each word, “Most of the time, I think that the Traveler arranged for us to meet you. But sometimes I think it was Molly.”

A fair breeze lifts the ends of her hair. It breathes through the leaves and the petals, chimes through both their holy symbols. Not so far from them a flower blows out of Yasha’s braids and away, but when Nott reaches out to snatch it Yasha catches her wrist. They watch it go.

Jester watches too. She sighs a quiet sigh, and Caduceus offers her a smile. “Maybe the Traveler and the Wild Mother and Mollymauk got together for tea and conspired for us to meet.”

“Oh! Yes, that is probably exactly what happened. Yes, I like that a lot.” She swipes at one eye and laughs. “He would have loved drinking his own death tea. He was silly like that.”

The sentiment is terribly endearing, and the sudden pain of it—a sweet, startling sense of loss, this desperate missing of someone he never knew—is a new kind of grief, and for him that is saying something. But he is becoming intimately, achingly acquainted with it.

Once they’ve finished their tea, and Jester has cleaned up the cards, and Beau is out of the tree and Fjord’s sword is away and Caleb has finished one book and another and another—once the day is done, they pack up to leave. The original members of the Nein say their farewells to Mollymauk’s grave while Caduceus tends to the horses; he thinks it would be nice to say a few words too, but he is not willing to intrude. One by one they mount their carts—they’ve had a string of good fortune, six horses to pull three wagons—and Caduceus is waiting for Caleb and Nott to join him when Yasha appears, very suddenly, at his side.

“Hello, Caduceus. Would you ride with me at the back of the caravan?”

Yasha is an odd one—they are all odd, surely, but Yasha in a different way. Half the time she is fiercely protective of Caduceus and the other half she avoids him with fervor. She would kill for him without hesitation, she will talk to him about thoughtful, precious things, but she can rarely bear to meet his eyes. Less so since the business with her fiendish acquaintance and the Laughing Hand. But she’s looking at him now, resolutely. He agrees.

Beauregard is disappointed to lose the time with Yasha, but she brightens at the idea of playing third wheel to Fjord and Jester. She jogs off, cackling, and the carts jolt to life. Now Yasha has eyes only for the road, the reins held securely in her hand. Caduceus is content to wait until she’s ready to speak, so he turns from her as a small offer of privacy. His focus finds the gravemarker, the dazzling coat. It flutters like a wave goodbye. Caduceus waves back.

“Do you ever doubt, Caduceus?” says Yasha.

“Doubt what, Yasha?” says Caduceus.

“Your god,” says Yasha.

“Yes,” says Caduceus, because he has. The coat vanishes around the bend, and Caduceus aches for the loss of it. He settles back in his seat, with Yasha in view. His answer seems to have taken her off guard. She doesn’t shift her gaze or tighten her fists but the smooth pace of her breathing stutters before evening out again.

“I do as well,” she says. “What do you do when you doubt?”

He thinks on that. “Well… truthfully, doubt is pretty new to me, so I’m still kind of figuring it out. But I guess I’m more… receptive to it than I was.” Yeah, that feels right. He meanders through the words, feeling them out as he goes. “I’ve come to think doubt is just another natural part of faith. Like death, or grief, or flowers. If you tend to it properly—don’t ignore it, and don’t overindulge it—then eventually you’ll make your peace with it. When I look at it like that, it’s a little easier to bear.”

He didn’t expect to say so much. But this is something he’s been ruminating on for a while, and it’s nice to share with someone. Yasha strikes him as the kind of individual who appreciates honesty. He says, “If I may, what do you doubt, Yasha?”

Yasha is quiet for a moment, and then she is quiet for enough moments that when she speaks again Caduceus startles out of his own head—he had thought the conversation ended. But then, it was a very personal question. One that required due thought.

“The Stormlord’s judgment,” she says. “His motives. That he worships loss, and feels the need to test my resolve against it. Sometimes I doubt these things, but usually I do not. He has saved me so many times. I am learning to trust him.”

Yasha is watching him again. Her gaze is a distant lightning storm, intense and fixed to him from afar.

“What do you doubt, Caduceus Clay?”

Many things. Sometimes he doubts his decision to leave his graveyard; sometimes he doubts the wisdom of staying for so long. Sometimes he doubts his family. Sometimes he doubts these people, who he has come to love quite dearly. He doubts the Mother’s plan, rarely; more frequently he doubts his ability to interpret it. In so short a time he has doubted so many things.

But what he says is, “I doubt that Mollymauk Tealeaf and I were never meant to meet.”

“Yes,” says Yasha, softly, without breath. “I doubt that as well.”

Neither of them cry, and that is for the better. 

Then Caduceus says, “Will you tell me about him?”

And Yasha draws in a breath that rattles her bones. “Yes.”

Mollymauk Tealeaf crawled out of the dirt two years ago, empty and lost and shivering, and a handful of days later he was with the circus. There he found a family, and from them he learned love and loyalty. He lived his life running recklessly forward because he was terrified his past might catch him from behind, and if it did, who would he be then? Above all he wanted to be Mollymauk Tealeaf: Molly to his friends, doing good turns when he could afford it, finding and making joy everywhere. Irreverent and reckless and fearless, even though he was very often afraid. He loved life but had dismal self preservation. A little arrogant and a little petty and a little vain. In impulsive moments he could be cruel, but much more often he was warm, nurturing. He had a habit of wrangling strays. It often felt as though he had adopted the circus instead of the other way around, and then the Mighty Nein after them. He was Yasha’s very dearest friend.

“And he was a fool,” Yasha adds, but she says it so fondly that it nearly breaks Caduceus’s heart. There’s a violet tucked in her hair. Flowers for Zuella, Caduceus thinks. Flowers for Mollymauk.

He says, “If you’d like, you can bring me some of the flowers you find. I can try to make a tea of them.”

“I’d like that,” Yasha says.

Caduceus remembers Glory Run. The cloak and the earth and the snow. He thinks about it a lot. 

He thinks about it even when he’s kneeling at the grave in the dead heat of summer, even in autumn’s cool and spring’s sweetness. He thinks about digging his fingers into cold, freshly turned earth, casting _Decompose,_ and meeting Mollymauk Tealeaf.

Not really, of course. Not the way other people imagine meeting someone. No hello would you like some tea. No luxury of face and voice and touch. Caduceus met Mollymauk the way soul friends from a past life pass on the street as strangers. A fleeting, powerful impression of loyalty and bitterness and fear and deep, fierce love. The lingering scent of nag champa. 

He doubts many others would understand, but that’s alright. Death isn’t like people think it is. Caduceus would know. When the spell was cast, an echo of Mollymauk took root in his soul as it took root in the soil, and that was where he stayed. With each new piece of Mollymauk that Caduceus gathered, whether through words or through action, whether intentionally or not, whether flattering or less than, the corner of Caduceus’s haunted heart would yearn in urgent sympathy. He’s learned to listen for it. When he is in need of comfort he speaks to it. When he prays to the Wild Mother he clutches the pendant like a second holy symbol. 

He thinks maybe this is love.

They are deep in the wilds of Xhorhas. They are trying to stop a war. The house in Rosohna is far away, Glory Run and the Blooming Grove even farther. And they are tired, of body and of soul, Caduceus knows. They need comfort. They need home.

They find a town tucked away in the mountains, hardy and small and wary of strangers. But the market is well stocked--a lot of their culture is rooted in their food, which Caduceus thinks is just great. He peels off for the market while the others haggle and barter at the town’s one makeshift inn. It takes time but the vendors warm to him, and they chat about the rainy season and the mountain passes, which paths to take and which to avoid and which ones off the road will lead to a quick shelter. He offers what advice he can for sickness and for growing things in rough climate. He gives them some rare spices they don’t have in stock. While he talks he reaches for different fruits and vegetables, spices and herbs, hunks of fragrant cheeses and funguses, most that he knows and some that he doesn’t. He takes a backseat and lets that strange corner of his heart that is not his own guide his hand. He’s never made a dish blind before, so to speak. He’s kind of excited.

There’s a minor hiccup when it comes to meat and meat substitutes, but he has enough experience to fill in the gaps. The echo in his chest is--annoyed, if he had to guess, and tries to yank his sternum back in the direction of the butcher. He clucks and hums at it until it settles. The vendors wave goodbye when he turns to make his way back to the inn (a family’s home, really, that they were trying to cajole into letting them stay the night). One stooped old woman pulls him into a kneel and plants two firm, stern kisses on either cheek. Altogether a good errand.

His friends haven’t had as much luck with the locals. He returns to find them conspiring in furtive voices on the road, every door firmly shut to them.

Not conspiring. Arguing. “I keep telling you, I had it. If the rest of you lot had just kept quiet and if Nott ever kept her damned hands to herself—”

“You’re not half as charming as you used to be, Fjord! No one can understand your terrible new voice!” Nott hisses. “I wouldn’t have been caught if we had left the humans outside like I said in the first place. They freak everyone out! No offense, Caleb.”

“Offense fucking taken,” says Beauregard, bowling right over Caleb’s response. “And in case you haven’t noticed, we’re _all_ freaking them out, because this whole damn town is full of xenophobic hick yokels!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Caduceus says, “I just met some lovely folks back at the market.” The others don’t seem to hear him.

“You _guys,”_ says Jester, pouting mightily, “What are we going to do? I don’t want to sleep on the cold wet road in the cold wet rain again.”

“There is always the Tiny Hut,” says Caleb.

“Yeah,” Caduceus tries, again, “or there’s this neat cave I just heard about—”

“I don’t want to sleep in the Tiny Hut again either! It’s _tiny,_ and smelly!”

“Well I’m sure whining about it will remedy the situation,” Caleb snaps.

“Stop arguing. You’re giving me a headache.” Yasha is massaging her temples. Nott rounds on her.

“Some help you were back there! You didn’t try to pull any cool Xhorhassian strings or anything. What’s the point of having a terrifying Xhorhassian murderer if she won’t even intimidate people into giving us a room!”

“Stop. Pointing. At me.” Yasha leans down and bats Nott’s accusing finger away. Nott bares her fangs. Her little fingers are all ready to keep poking and prodding and pointing, Caduceus can tell, and, yeah. Enough is enough.

_“Fellas.”_ It isn’t loud but it resonates. The Nein trip into wide-eyes silence, and he smiles at them. His voice rumbles back to it’s usual volume. “Sorry for raising my voice.” Beau smirks; Fjord huffs a low laugh. “Now why don’t we all take a second and calm down. How about some deep breaths?”

They are grudgingly led through some breathing exercises. Caduceus's lungs are filled and emptied and filled again of rain-clean air.

“Nice. Cool. I’m feeling much better, huh? How ‘bout you guys?”

Grumbled acquiescence. Good humor warms him, and the pendant warms him too.

“Let’s get out the rain, shall we? I think I know a place.”

The cave is right where the vendors said it would be. It’s large and dry and cool, and there are no undead giants or carnivorous bugs to contend with. Only normal cave-crawling bugs. Caduceus lets them wriggle over his fingers for a minute, and then he digs out a cook fire.

Aroma fills the cavern. The tense silence gives way to something softer. Caleb rolls out silver wire while Beau and Nott set up camp, ribbing each other amicably. Fjord and Jester explore the depths of the cave and its tunnels, their voices echoing like specters long after their bodies have vanished from sight. 

Yasha is the only one who pays Caduceus mind. She braces her shoulders against cool stone and sometimes she leans forward for a softspoken suggestion. The broth is to be left at a simmer, not a boil. This vegetable is meant to be shredded, not diced. Marinate that root to soften it. Saute these together before you add it to the pot. But mostly she just watches, steadily, breathing deep. He doesn’t mind. There’s a warmth in his chest that knows those eyes, and is comforted by them. 

Nott scampers into his lap, over his shoulders, onto his head to lean over the pot and inhale the steam. “Smells good, Mr. Clay!” she declares, in a voice that also says it smells familiar, but she isn’t sure from where. There’s a distant splash; high, shrieking laughter, unclear from whom; then Jester is sprinting out of the shadows, Fjord on her heels. Both are sopping wet.

“Guys guys guys! Guess what we found! Ooh, it smells good in here—”

“Guess what _I_ found, she means.”

“Guess what you tripped and fell in, I mean!” She bumps his hip and he grins at her.

“Guess what you—”

Caleb clears his throat. Nott and Beauregard snicker. Caduceus adds a pinch of paprikash.

“Hot springs!” says Jester, voice suddenly shrill. She and Fjord are very carefully not touching. “We found natural hot springs and they glow and they’re warm and they are _so cool,_ you guys!”

“A bath?” Caleb says hopefully. Beau springs to her feet and jabs a finger at her nose.

“Girls first!”

A brief spat; Beauregard wrestles Caleb into submission. He taps the ground and says _onkel._ Nott and Jester are off like a shot (Nott does not even want a bath, Caleb mutters), but Beau pauses to hover at Yasha’s shoulder. She asks a soft question. Yasha wavers.

“You can go. I think I’ve got it from here,” Caduceus says.

“Huh?” says Beauregard, glancing between them. But Yasha is watching him again. Watching the pendant as it’s drawn out of his collar to swing gently when he leans over the stew. 

Yasha nods. She accepts Beau’s hand up, and the two walk off to the hot spring together. Beau says, “What was all that about? Are you a chef? That’s awesome.” Yasha’s answer, if she gives one, is too soft to be heard.

By the time the girls are done, and Caleb and Fjord after them, the stew is nearly ready. Caduceus unfolds into standing, stretches slowly, and then ambles off to wash up. Before he goes he instructs his friends to let it simmer and settle until he gets back. He says this especially to Nott and Jester, who are circling in a predatory way that makes him rumble with laughter. Yasha will keep them in line, he’s sure.

He washes. He returns. The scent hits him anew, and settles as a wistful ache behind his breastbone, and behind his eyes. He breathes in. He breathes out. He smiles. 

Reactions vary when he ladles out the stew. Fjord’s eyes prick bright and wet; he scrubs at them as inconspicuously as he can. Beau looks shocked, almost angry, and then winded. Caleb and Yasha sit quietly, wooden spoons still held before their mouths, eyes closed. Nott devours with single-minded focus. Jester squeals with delight.

“Just like Molly’s,” she says.


End file.
